Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Happy day

Obama has won the American elections!!!!

That has, one would hope, positive implications for everything (external politics), but also for science. His predecesor believed in intelligent design, didn't understand (or didn't care about) global warming, banned public research on stem cells, and freezed the research budget of the NIH. Will all change now? Let's hope so...

Monday, November 3, 2008

Open Day and: Water in Canada, not for all







Just a quick entry to say that the Open Day was a great success!!!! (I wasn't there, regretfully, but it seems lots of people came to do experiments, visit the laboratories, listen to the scientists explaining why research is important, etc.).

You can check the PRBB Open Day website for some more info on what happened, or check this blog. And make sure you keep the date for next year!

Another (completely unrelated) thing, something I learned today at one of the scientific conferences that take place here at the PRBB. The speaker was Louise Potvin, from the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine of the Université de Montreal in Canada, and her talk was entitled "Public Health Interventions: A Cause of Health Disparities?".

So, here's the fact: Even though Canada has the largest reserves of fresh water in the world, the Aborigen reserves in the north of the country don't have drinking water!!!!!

I've always liked and admired Canada and its people, but obviously they (or at least their leaders and responsible people) are not doing enough...

xx